Monday, February 26, 2007

Did you see that former Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan came out today and predicted the country would be in a recession by the end of this year? The ironic thing is, of course, is how such a statement can be self-fulfilling if enough people believe it. And coming from someone with his credentials, the masses are certainly more likely to believe it - thus, making the prediction more probable.

The financial markets instantly reacted, with Treasury notes and bonds seeing their yields tank a bit - with the 10yr note slipping 8 or 10 basis points to a 4.65 yield. I personally think that this trend will quickly reverse, and end right back where yields started just a day earlier. But, over the longer term, I do have to consider whether this Greenspan statement will predict, or possibly reinforce the prospects of, an economic slowdown in the USA.

The US has undergone a period of considerable long-term economic growth over the past 6 years. This growth has, in my opinion, been a bit of a sham though. Much of the "growth" has been the result of a housing bubble created by Greenspan and company to bail us out of the aftermath of the stock-market bubble collapsing around the year 2000. Extremely low interest rates, coupled with super financial liquidity and easy loans, made for a period of rampant price inflation in housing. Next, there was, and is, the extreme government deficit spending that is also making the economy look more fundamentally sound than it is. Personal savings rates are near or below zero - that isn't a good thing. Outsourcing (of jobs) has put quite a bit of pressure on middle-class employment prospects. And, finally, when you factor in this insane and ever-growing trade deficit and accumulated trade-debt with the rest of the world (China being a very large part of it), things just are not so rosy as they may otherwise appear.

So, where does that leave me? I think Greenspan is right. But, I actually think he is wrong in that the recession he speaks of has already been with us for the past few years in disguise. I have a feeling the people at the absolute upper end of the economic scale are enjoying a period of economic growth, while everyone other than the top few percent has been just floating along or treading water (economically) during this same time. Sure, the numbers have shown that we are in a period of economic growth in aggregate, but with inflationary pressures on the average household's budget for food, energy, and medical expenses, I just don't know how many typical Americans would say that they have enjoyed the benefits of 6 years of economic growth. That given, I can't help but be concerned with the consequences of a true (statistical) recession on this country if Greenspan's comments materialize mathematically this year.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

I have been a longtime user of Borland's Delphi software development products. Borland has recently created a division called CodeGear, and that division is taking over all of the development tools. And, one of the newly announced software development tools from CodeGear is a product they have dubbed "Delphi for PHP".

With a moniker like that, I instantly had to give it some attention. Delphi (the original Object-Pascal version) is one of the most productive RAD (Rapid Application Development) IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) coupled with a VCL (Visual Component Library) that is second to none. It cranks out native Win32 executables, and I find myself highly productive using this tool.

So, when I hear of a product called "Delphi for PHP", I am both intrigued and a bit confused. Delphi has been synonymous with Object-Pascal, and to now throw PHP (an open source scripting language and/or Hypertext PreProcessor most commonly used for web development) into the mix was a bit odd in my opinion. But, if it brings the RAD IDE of Delphi to PHP development, this could be an awesome combination indeed, and the existing Delphi brand is certainly bound to get attention with more persons than just me.

This is a product worth keeping a watch on! If you view that video (about a minute and a half) I gave the link to above, and if you are currently familiar with Delphi's VCL, you will see that the code created looks very intuitive and VCL-like, but for PHP. I have only done a little bit of work with PHP (I do mainly ASP.Net for web stuff, though I even try to avoid that), and I have always "hand coded" it since I didn't have access to a great IDE for PHP development. In fact, it's that lack of an IDE that always keep me from jumping right into the PHP software development arena -- that is about to change!

I can quite honestly say that I will be an early adopter of this product. I don't care if it is a "version 1.o product" or whatever, so long as once I use a trial/demo of the application for a bit that it performs decent. It'll be a HUGE step up from hand-coding, and most importantly to me as an existing Delphi developer, I will nearly instantly be productive in the environment! That is a huge win!

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

FREE software! Yes, you can get free software that is quite capable, powerful, and useful for many of the tasks you require software for. Thanks to the OSS (open-source software) movement, you have access to all sorts of software at no charge. Most of this software has been created by volunteer programmers and developers from around the world, some of it is created by programmers that work for donations alone, and there are even some free software products that are developed with corporate funding.

I am a huge fan of various OSS products, and I use a few of these applications on a regular basis. So, I figured I would list some of what I consider to be best-in-class free / OSS products here for anyone looking to

INKSCAPE Inkscape is a powerful and rather easy to use vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X. This tool is simply wonderful for sketching out conceptual artwork and so much more. Because it is a vector-based drawing system, anything you draw scales without the pixelation issues that would be present with bitmap-based graphics.

Gaussian blur is the first SVG filter supported by Inkscape. You can blur any object to any extent - yet it remains vector and fully editable. This gives a huge boost to Inkscape as a creative art tool.

Display speed and interactivity: not only does Inkscape render faster, but it can now respond to user input before it finished redrawing the screen, which greatly improves the interactivity of the program.

History dialog makes it easy to to review your editing session and jump to any step of it, undoing and redoing multiple actions with one click.

Several important tool features are added, notably the new selection mode in Node tool and the adjustable rounded caps in Calligraphic pen.

Bitmap tracing works better for multi-color traces, sports a redesigned dialog and several new options.

Many new extension effects are added, including Color effects and Pattern along path.

The Outline mode has got many fixes and improvements, including a keyboard shortcut.

Several new commands in Help menu open various Inkscape-related pages in your default browser, making Inkscape reference information more accessible as you work.

Dozens of smaller features are added throughout the program, and hundreds of bugs are fixed.

This application should suffice for quite a few uses. I have found the application very handy for working on conceptual ideas and visuals. If you have yet to check this software out, I highly recommend it. You do not need to be a graphics professional to use this software and enjoy the fun that comes with some powerful freehand drawing abilities and more.

NOTEPAD++This is simply an awesome free text editor. Forget Windows Notepad - that thing is nothing short of an obsolete dinosaur of an editor compared to Notepad++! Though the name of the software would make it sound like a similar application, Notepad++ goes so far beyond the functionality of Notepad.

I use this application for all sorts of things. It's a wonderful code-editor for not being part of an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and even supports syntax highlighting and code-folding (collapsing code between begin..end regions) for quite a few languages (and custom languages you set up).

For an average non-programmer user, it still offers all sorts of amazing features, including:

Multi-Document - edit several documents at the same time.

Multi-View - have two views at same time. Use this feature to visualize (edit) 2 different documents at the same time or edit the same document in 2 different places at the same time.

File Status Auto-detection - if you modify or delete a file open in Notepad++, you will be notified to update your document (reload the file or remove the file).

Zoom in and zoom out - a wonderful feature indeed!

Macro recording and playback - You can save several macros and edit their keyboard shorcuts for the next use. This can be a real timesaver on repetitive tasks.

TONS of functionality for converting/processing text in all sorts of ways. Like, changing the case of text, changing single-quotes to double-quotes, and so much more (see the TextFX menu after you install it)

OPENOFFICEIf you are a typical desktop computing user that needs some fundamental word-processing and spreadsheet capabilities, but does not want to pay for Microsoft Office, then look no further than OpenOffice.org

This free office-productivity software is bound to meet your needs unless you are really doing some sort of advanced word-processing layouts or are working with a lot of tightly integrated Microsoft-only environment considerations.

Bottom line: don't have an office-suite and want one for free? Download OpenOffice and give it a try.

FireFox (browser)If you can't stand Internet Explorer (especially IE7), give FireFox a try. It is the only browser I use for 99% of my web-surfing. I have run into just a few sites where for some reason a web-page only works in IE, at which point I suffer through using IE for a moment or two. Likewise, I have found a few sites that render best in FireFox (including my own book-site's pages - and I have no idea why).

How would you like to try out a new piece of software without having to setup a computer and/or install the software? I know I surely love the time-savings of just downloading a pre-built virtual-machine file, and launching that "machine" with VMWare Player. How would you like to browse the Internet with nary a concern about viruses and spyware and such? Try a pre-build Internet browser appliance using VMWare! (perhaps this one, which includes browser, anti-virus, and instant-messaging app). There are so many pre-configured "systems" to try, including various Linux desktop distros and more.

This product is nothing short of awesome, especially when you factor in how many pre-built and freely available virtual-machine appliances are ready to use with VMWare Player! Just check out the directory of pre-built virtual-machines here. Everything from free operating systems with pre-installed applications, to evaluation software setups are available (including Exchange 2007 eval).

So far, my only complaint with the pre-built virtual appliances has been the availability of them over Bittorrent. Some of the lesser-known or less-used appliances seem nearly completely unavailable for download due to lack of "seeders". Which, brings me to my next application...

Azureus (a BitTorrent client)This is just one of a handful of BitTorrent clients available, but I happened to take to it so I certainly recommend it. BitTorrent is a peer-assisted digital content delivery platform that enables users to easily publish and download files, and the more people that participate in sharing the files, the faster you can usually retrieve the file of choice.

I have discussed this product before, and I do not recommend using it for sharing any copyrighted material!!! It is great for sharing open-source software, freeware trials, and other non-protected digital material though. It is the primary way I download many of the Linux operating system ISO (CD/DVD Image) files. And, speaking of Linux...

Linux Distributions (many!!)If you have yet to try Linux out for an operating system, start reading Distrowatch.com and getting a feel for what is available. There is a dizzying number of distributions available now, with one that is bound to fit your tastes for an open-source operating system. I personally prefer OpenSuse and Kubuntu (both use the KDE desktop - which is quite Windows-like and pretty easy for Windows users to get used to).

I have found OpenSuse to be the best as far as recognizing all the hardware in my PC (like the ATI or NVidia graphics cards, NIC, and the like), as well as being the easiest to configure Windows-networking-access in (via Samba).

K-Lite Codec PackHave you ever encountered a media-file, CD, or DVD that just won't open or play in Windows Media Player - where you get some crazy message about a codec missing from your system and such!? I have, and it is annoying. What else do I want Media Player for if not to play a DVD or something?

Well, enough of that. I came across this product called K-Lite Mega Codec pack that has all the Codecs (coders/decoders) needed to play nearly any type of DVD on your computer. And, it includes this Media Player Classic component that will take the place of Windows Media Player and make use of these Codecs to allow you to watch that DVD that you own!

So, if you have a problem playing your favorite movie DVDs you own on your computer, give this a try.

FileZillaIf you need an FTP client to upload files to a website, this should do the job. I used to use CuteFTP, which I owned an old version of, and when I was considering whether or not to purchase yet-another-upgrade to the product, I discovered FileZilla.

GAIMAn instant-messenger client. Think AIM, but without the annoying ADS!Try it, you'll like it.And, it enables you to chat with people on all sorts of instant-messaging networks.

Gourmet Recipe ManagerA simple, but powerful, recipe manager. If you love to cook, and want a way to organize your recipes and track nutritional content, and more, this program is worth a look. It can even import recipes from recipezaar and more. Quite cool!

WinMergeEver need to quickly find the differences between a couple of text files? Check this program out.

Blender 3DWant to create your own 3D animated movie? Check this free software out.Blender .43 was just released, bringing even more commercial level 3D modeling features with it. The power of this application is amazing. Newly available sculpt-modeling abilities, fluid particle animation, and other wonderful improvements should give you all the power you need for your 3D Modeling and/or animation project.

It sure beats paying thousands for a commercial 3D rendering application, especially if you are on a limited budget.

FastStone Image ViewerIf you need a quick way to manipulate some of your pictures/images, this is a decent app. This is freeware (not open-source), but nonetheless you may find it quite useful since it is still, most importantly, free! From their site: it is a "fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments."

CONCLUSIONThat should give you a pretty decent collection of very useful free software to try out for your day to day use. There are many more applications that I use and can recommend, but these will get you started in the open-source / free software arena with some high-quality applications that demonstrate a wide variety of capabilities you can get for free.

About Me

I have spent much of my life working with computers, technology, programming, software development, and business consulting. I have a strong attachment to technology and science in general.

My interests and insight go well beyond computers though, as you will soon discover while you peruse my blog entries covering topics from finance to gluten free diets. I have even recently authored a Gluten-Free Dessert Recipes Cookbook of gourmet quality desserts for Celiacs and Wheat-Free / Gluten-Free individuals.

Note: This site is not intended for use as a source of technology, health, legal, or professional advice, and I assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any thing else resulting from you reading this blog. All content is copyrighted with all rights reserved.